Kickables: Tangibles for Feet

摘要

We introduce the concept of tangibles that users manipulate with their feet. We call them kickables. Unlike traditional tangibles, kickables allow for very large interaction surfaces as kickables reside on the ground. The main benefit of kickables over other foot-based modalities (e.g., foot touch), is their strong affordance, which we validate in two user studies. This affordance makes kickables well-suited for walkup installations, such as tradeshows or museum exhibits. We present a custom design as well as five sets of standard kickables to help application designers create kickable applications faster. Each set supports multiple standard controls, such as push buttons, switches, dials, and sliders. In doing so, each set explores a different design principle, in particular different mechanical constraints. We demonstrate an implementation on our pressure-sensing floor.